10 THE AUSTRALIAN, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2019theaustralian.com.au/life LIFE

AUSE01Z50MA - V1

GRAPE VINENICK RYAN

A NATURALLY KINDER FUTURE

An acclaimed conservation sanctuary in Thailand offers traumatised elephants an idyllic existence

CATHERINE MARSHALL

TECH

I’ll admit, I had grand delusionsgetting my posture fixed might in-volve being bound to a chair withHermes scarfs — much like AnneHathaway in The Princess Diaries— while Julie Andrews casuallyinsults me into form.

Instead, I found myself sittingat my desk as a small device gentlyshocked my back like a dog testingan electric fence, reminding me tosit up straight vs. slouching almostsideways, as is my wont.

Those who are worried aboutwhat desk work might be doing totheir backs, or who are keen to re-ceive thrilling little jolts, may findthe small, tingly gadget known asthe Upright Go ($120, upright-pose.com) appealing.

At roughly the size of a USBdrive, it clings firmly to your backall day thanks to adhesive strips,and zaps you each time you beginto hunch over your keyboard. Italso syncs to an app that tracksyour posture.

Many trackers, like thosemeant to tally sleep patterns, often

help identify a problem but do littleto fix it. The Upright Go’s trainingmode aims higher, promising tohelp strengthen back muscles andeliminate fatigue.

“The benefit of having a devicethat tracks posture is that it focuseson finding and correcting thesource of the pain, not just treatingit,” says chiropractor DebraMaibach.

After I wore the device for fivehours, obediently straightening ateach shock, I was sitting taller —and so were my observing co-workers. But, boy, did my backache.

“Your core muscles are gettingstronger to support your spine andhave a long-term effect,” says OriFruhauf, the brand’s co-founder,encouragingly.

He recommended that I wearthe device for at least two weeks tosee permanent results, but don-ning it for a long weekend had myabs and lower back throbbing and Iwas itching to peel it off.

For now, I think I’ll just stick tocore workouts — or I could alwaystry balancing a book atop myenchanting new tiara.

The Upright Go attaches to your upper back via special medical-grade silicone adhesives and when in training mode, vibrates on your back to alert you whenever you slouch

At roughly the size of a USBdrive … it zaps you each time you begin to hunch over your keyboard

The gang gathers for a good feed at the Elephant Nature Park, about 60km from Chiang Mai in Thailand

CATHERINE MARSHALL

the water,” Tong says. “It soothesher leg.”

And Fai Sai shades herself be-neath a pavilion. She worked for acircus and was chained andstarved for disobeying her owner.

“She didn’t improve, so he soldher to the park,” Tong says.

These three share their homewith more than 80 other ele-phants, mostly female sincethey’re easier to intimidate andtrain than males, and several ba-bies born into a life of relative free-dom. The older elephants werebought from their owners at a costof between $US5000 and$US100,000.

But despite the expense, Lekmarches onwards. She plans to ex-pand the sanctuary and build des-ignated walkways in the open-plan park so visitors will have lessphysical contact with the ele-phants. Ultimately, she wantsthem to be left in peace while thepeople they regard as their tor-mentors fade into the background.

Catherine Marshall visited Elephant Nature Park as a guest of Intrepid Travel. The company’s three-day Chiang Mai and Elephants program includes a guided visit to the park, during which guests can engage with the elephants in a responsible manner. Prices start from $480 a person, twin share. More: intrepidtravel.com/au.

before her arrival in this paradisein 2015.

“She was skin and bone,” saysguide Tong Chatpisitchaikul asthe now-plump elephant arisesfrom her swim.

Dha Lha is receiving specialistcare in the onsite medical centrefor a leg injury received in Phuket,where she also spent her days fer-rying tourists.

“She really likes to stand in

The elephants are living the dreamdown in a valley north of ChiangMai in Thailand.

A posse of youngsters chargesacross the Mae Taeng River, send-ing people flying as they mountthe riverbank on the opposite side.

Babies climb a mud hill andpaint their prematurely wrinkledbodies in lashings of dirt.

A greedy mob chases the truckthat’s come to deliver their food,probing its bamboo-filled tray withtheir trunks.

On a far curve of the river adowager submerges her bodyagainst the tide, fills her trunk withits effluent and sends it sprayingheavenward in a glorious, dia-mond-spattered arc. Her mouthstretches wide open as she lifts herhead from the water; it looks for allthe world as if she’s smiling.

But there’s an elephant in theroom, as it were. These apparentlycarefree animals are victims ofabuse, and this playground,Elephant Nature Park, set at thefoot of a lush mountain about60km from Chiang Mai, is theirrefuge.

Founded by Thai conserva-tionist Lek Chailert in the 1990sand recipient of many internation-al accolades, the park has been in-strumental in not only providingrescued elephants and other ani-mals with a natural habitat, but ineducating tourists about the dam-age being done to these creatures.

Many of the park’s inhabitantshave spent their lives working for

logging companies, draggingtree trunks through dense

forests and suffering dis-abling injuries as a conse-quence. Others, perhapsmore disturbingly, are

victims of the tourism in-dustry, put to work carrying

tourists on elephant treks andrides, performing in circuses, beg-ging on the streets and even pro-ducing artwork (they’re taught tohold paintbrushes in their trunksand splash gaudy swirls on canvas-es, which are then sold to tourists).

Hidden from those partakingof this apparent frivolity is the viol-ence that goes into taming thesewild animals. The elephants aretaken from their mothers as babiesand are forced to undergo a pro-cess known as phajaan, or “thecrush”, in which they’re restrained,starved and brutally assaulted.

Some elephants try to killthemselves by standing on theirtrunks and cutting off their air sup-ply; others are left so traumatisedthey go insane. By the time pha-jaan is completed days or evenweeks later, the calves’ spirits arethoroughly broken; now they areready to be trained.

Thousands of these mollifiedelephants are used as entertain-ment across southeast Asia.

In 2017, World Animal Protec-tion released its Taken for a Ridestudy, which surveyed 3000 ele-phants kept at tourist venues inThailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, India,Laos and Cambodia.

Its findings were stark: 96 percent of venues offering rides kepttheir elephants in cruel and unac-ceptable living conditions, includ-ing being fed a poor diet, having nointeraction with other elephantsand being chained up while notperforming. The report also founda 30 per cent rise in elephant num-bers at tourism venues in Thailandsince 2010, a figure that corre-sponds with the increase in tour-ists to that country.

Australians are among thosesupporting this industry. In a pollcommissioned by WAP late lastyear, more than a quarter of re-spondents said they’d taken anelephant ride, and more than halfadmitted to attending or participa-ting in an elephant, dolphin ortiger show. Those most resistant tochange are older travellers, saysNeil Rodgers, managing directorof Adventure World Travel.

“Largely, generation X and mil-lennials have been educatedthroughout their schooling on theprotection of our planet and thenegative impacts we can haveupon it,” he says.

“For the baby boomer segment,which is the largest and most afflu-ent travelling market, this is wherewe find the messaging needs to bemore prevalent.”

But change is afoot and traveloperators are leading the charge.In 2013, Intrepid Travel becamethe first company to halt the saleand promotion of elephant ridesand shows globally. TripAdvisorannounced in 2016 that it wouldend the sale of tickets for wildlifeexperiences where touristscome into direct contact withcaptive wild animals.

And companies in-cluding World Expedi-tions, G Adventures,The Travel Corpor-ation (parent com-pany of AdventureWorld Travel) and theIntrepid Group havejoined the WAP-con-vened Coalition for Ethi-cal Wildlife Tourism,which pledges to support ve-nues that meet animal welfarestandards.

“More than 500,000 wild ani-mals worldwide, including ele-phants, sloths, tigers and dolphins,are suffering for tourist entertain-ment, with unwitting tourists visit-ing facilities which keep theseanimals in captivity,” says DonnaLawrence, World Expeditions’ re-sponsible travel manager.

“Our animal welfare policy was

developed in conjunction withWorld Animal Protection and ouracceptance into the Coalition forEthical Wildlife Tourism is a resultof our collaboration with them.”

This collaborative effort ap-pears to be influencing a gradualtransition to elephant-friendly

business models among camps inThailand and elsewhere, accord-ing to WAP. The economic incen-tive, it says, is essential in drivingsuch change.

And the change is never moreevident than at Elephant NaturePark, where tourist dollars arerestoring joy to stricken animals.

Noi Nah, the dowager bathingblissfully in the river, spent about70 years hauling logs and tourists

TRAVEL

A shocking way to better your postureThose worried what desk work is doing to our backs may find this small, spine-tingling gadget useful

HALEY VELASCO

HOW TO BE A RESPONSIBLE WILDLIFE TOURISTAbout 110 million people visit cruel wildlife attractions around the world annually, either independently or through tour operators or travel agents. Help stamp out these practices with the following steps.

DON’T• Don’t ride, hug, kiss or pose for selfies with wild animals, including tiger cubs and dolphins.• Visit attractions where wild animals are forced to perform tricks and shows.• Ride or touch elephants or visit elephant shows, including “Be a mahout for a day’’ excursions.• Attend animal fights such as bullfights, cockfights and crocodile wrestling.• Buy souvenirs made from parts of wild animals such as ivory, pangolin scales and coral.• Decline dishes that are preceded by cruelty, such as shark fin soup, bush meat, foie gras and tiger wine.

DO• Seek out operators that have pledged to exclude unethical wildlife tourism from their itineraries. For further information: worldanimalprotection.org. • Support communities — and, in effect, conservation efforts — by buying locally produced, environmentally sustainable souvenirs that are free from animal products.• Visit, volunteer at or donate to reputable sanctuaries and nature conservation projects.• Take part in tours where nature and wildlife are not disturbed.• Report animal cruelty to local authorities or local animal welfare organisations.

I once knew a bloke who built a career in the shadow of a weary cliche. He designed book covers, his professional worth reliant on people ignoring what they’ve been told a million times.

Despite the ubiquity of the advice, every trip tothe bookshop is an invitation to judge the books by their covers, and trawling the shelves of a bottle shop requires a similar leap of faith.

There are wine labels I really like, not just for pure aesthetics, but for how the visual language cleverly reflects the nature of the wine inside. Conversely, some labels make me want to hurl myself eyeball first on to a rusty spiked fence.

My favourite labels adorn a pairof wines born in a bio-dynamic McLaren Vale vineyard, elevated by a pair of Yarra Valley visionaries and echoing the unmistakeable sound of a band I’ve loved since I was a teenager.

The label is Known Pleasures, a homage to legendary Manchester band Joy Division and their epochal 1979 album Unknown Pleasures. It’s pasted on white and a red, made by Phil Sexton and Steve Flamstead at Giant Steps in the Yarra Valley with fruit sourced from the Gateway vineyard in McLaren Vale.

They’re obsessed with music, but have divergent tastes. The gloomy glory of Joy Division is the one bit of common ground, a passion shared rather than enjoyed in isolation. For both, it infects heart and soul.

The label is a homage to designer Peter Saville’s haunting cover for Unknown Pleasures, an iconic image representing the intensity of radio pulses emitted by a pulsar registered as C19.

The vineyard, as the name clearly suggests, sitsat the entrance to McLaren Vale, a verdant buffer keeping urban sprawl at bay, a sea breeze-cooled hilltop of red soil over limestone where light performs a shadowplay through foliage as a new dawn fades. (The previous paragraphs contain a few gratuitous Joy Division references. There’s a bottle of wine in it for the reader who can pick the others scattered throughout this column.)

That the team from Giant Steps are preparedto leap the logistical hurdles faced by a Yarra Valley winery wanting to make wine from McLaren Vale fruit speaks volumes for the vineyard’s quality and the way wine made from this place reflects a moment in time. A special moment in time.

The wines sit in a unique Interzone, their McLaren Vale DNA spliced and recoded by a winemaking team widely celebrated for their Yarra Valley chardonnay and pinot noir.

Sometimes changing your ways and taking different roads can really pay off.

It’s the only wine I’d buy for the label alone. Thankfully Sexton and Flamstead ensure such an impulsive decision pays off.

Known Pleasures ‘Field White’ 2018, McLaren Vale, $30Sourced from Block 4 in the Gateway vineyard, a patch the planting records say should be entirely viognier but where closer inspection reveals a handful of rogue vines that appear to be other white Rhone varieties. A bit of viticultural disorder has created a wine that’s a strong candidate for the best expression of this style in the country.

Where blends of these Rhone Valleyvarieties can tend to the oily and flabby, this is a wine that delivers richness with incredible restraint. Power without the padding.

It smells of apricots flirting withfull ripeness without being ready to commit, some roast pineapple and that salted watermelon rind that trendy chefs tried to foist on us a year or so back. There’s jasmine and soursobs in there too.

Record producer Martin Hannett became a legend for his work with Joy Division and the way he stripped back their sound to its angular essence.

If Hannett made wines from white Rhone varieties, they would taste, smell and feel like this.

On the stereo while drinking: Interzone.

Known Pleasures Shiraz 2018, McLaren Vale, $60To best understand this wine and how it is at once of McLaren Vale and at the same time something apart, you need to listen to the work of Joy Division bassist Peter Hook. On most tracks the bassline is a source of driving power, a sturdy foundation upon which can be built something of great magnitude.

But on a track like She’s Lost Controlthe muscle is replaced with tense sinew; the sound bounces rather than pounds.

It’s still instantly recognisable asHook, yet somehow very different.

So, too, this wine. There’s liqueur cherries, forest berries and ripe plums, cocoa powder and powdery tannins. But it’s the bouncy energy in the wine that sets it apart, the long rippling lines that give it a different shape and feel from its peers.

It’s drinking beautifully now buthas intriguing development ahead of it yet. It won’t push into the eternal, but if your timing’s not flawed, and it’s turned away on its side, it will last eight years, if not decades.

On the stereo while drinking: She’s Lost Controlfollowed by New Dawn Fades. Then it will make sense. And if you’ve picked all the references, I am @nickryanwine on Twitter.

McLaren Vale’s ode to Joy Division

Unknown Pleasures cover